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John the Baptist's call—"Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near"—succeeded in bringing Jews "from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan" to the desert where the prophet preached, to confess their sins and be baptised. Two thousand years later, the exhortation to "repent" is buried under a mountain of pejorative associations.

When faced with great tragedies, the most overwhelming feeling is one of helplessness. What can we do to change the lives of the hurting for the better? How can we help when not even the strong can find solutions? The answer is not simple, but it is more accessible than we might believe if it includes empathy, courage, and the faith that any...

Paris, November 13, 2015. A European capital is struck cruelly by fundamentalists who justify their crimes in the name of something sacred—an event that shocked the entire world. It was neither the first nor, unfortunately, the last tragedy whose impact on the public has become a subject of analysis.

The face muscles relax, and the eyes become empty before boredom urges them to seek another centre of interest. The restlessness culminates with some leaving and others immersing themselves in the exploration of their phones. Others seek to divert the discussion with a joke or hasten its end through a detached or ostentatious silence.

In A History of Young People in the West, Giovanni Levi and Jean-Claude Schmitt posit that, in the West, adolescence is first and foremost a social-cultural construction, and therefore a cultural product. They considered it at most subsidiarily as a stage in the physiological process of growing up.

“The words of the mouth are deep waters, but the fountain of wisdom is a rushing stream” (Proverbs 18:4).

I was a young student looking for a good paying job to support my family and my studies. On that day, I found myself in the head nurse’s office at the nearby nursing home for the elderly.

An experimenter is like a hunter who, instead of waiting quietly for game, tries to make it rise, by beating up the locality where he assumes it is. – Francis Bacon, 17th-century English philosopher

Let’s begin by extrapolating Paul’s assertion: “...but test them all; hold on to what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21).

We often forget that a relationship is the sum of two people—he + she = they—and what one does inevitably affects the other. That means each person’s behaviour influences the entire dynamic. Yet, more often than not, we focus on what the other person should or could do for us or for the relationship, and rarely stop to ask: What can I do...

There is no monster under the bed—that much is certain. But how do you convince your child of this, when they come to you, for the hundredth time, with the same fear? When you constantly use the same unheeded command, "Stop fooling around and go to sleep!", this is a sign that you need to learn more about your child's anxiety, and how...

Roberto Badenas is a Seventh-day Adventist who specialises in Bible studies and is a New Testament teacher, with a theological leadership career that reflects his concern for people.

Early exposure to technology helps children accumulate information quickly, opening up new ways for them to understand the world. At the same time, however, the online environment can put many of its most vulnerable users at risk.

The loss of a loved one unbalances us; we are never ready for it. Here are a few recommendations given by psychologists for such a situation.

Izzeldin Abuelaish wrote a book titled I Shall Not Hate, now translated into 13 languages, about the hatred that led to the death of his daughters. "Hate is a poison, a fire which burns you from the inside," he writes.